Delirious Architecture

Abstract

In 1978, Rem Koolhaas published his famous book Delirious New York,(Figure 1) in which he believed that a new urban form was gradually formed in Manhattan’s skyscraper forest in New York. It is totally different from any traditional urban form in the United States but created a unique style of its own. And the architecture itself, with the changes of the times, the advancement of science and construction technology and the continuous development of design concepts, is gradually changing and looking for its own new developing direction. From a practical point of view, the advancement of materials and construction techniques can make building stronger and more economical, but what can the architecture become besides this? For thousands of years, architecture has been used as a quiet box for most of the time, carrying all the behaviors operated by the human inside or outside, but in the current era, can architecture be more than just a place where behavior occurs, but more about the behavior itself? In the past one year at Cornell AAP, I have been exploring what other unconventional forms of architecture can become, even though some might seem to be crazy or delirious. Some of these ideas combine mechanical principles, and some combine ecological techniques, and some combine advanced materials. I believe that in the future society, architecture can not only provide a place for our actions but also dominates our behaviors, architecture can be everything.